Thursday, 1 December 2016

Many Ministers had large cash holdings

Finance Minister Jaitley topped the list with over Rs. 65 lakh

The Centre’s demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes has forced the country’s population to queue up in front of banks. Politicians and Ministers in particular, seem to be relatively absent from these lines. Publicly available data indicates that a number of Ministers had large cash holdings as on March 31, 2016. The Code of Conduct for Ministers stipulates that they must file details of their assets and liabilities with the Prime Minister’s Office annually. This data, collated by Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and accessed by The Hindu, reveals that of the 76 Ministers who are currently serving, only 40 have declared the amount of cash they had in hand.

The data also reveals that not everyone in the government’s roster of Ministers shares the Prime Minister’s enthusiasm for cashless transactions.